Celebration Of Science: India International Science Festival 2021 To Be Held In Goa From 10 To 13 December

The India International Science Festival (IISF) — an annual event dedicated to the celebration of science and technology — will be back this year for the seventh edition.

IISF 2021 will be held from 10-13 December in Goa’s capital city, Panaji, in the hybrid mode — both in-person as well as virtual.

The Ministry of Earth Sciences, the Ministry of Science and Technology, Vijnana Bharati, and the Government of Goa will be the organisers of IISF 2021, with the Goa-based National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR), which looks after India’s research activities in the polar and Southern Ocean regions, serving as the nodal agency.

The theme of IISF 2021 is ‘Celebrating Creativity in Science, Technology and Innovation for Prosperous India’. In line with this theme, 12 programmes, including the mega science and technology expo, are planned.

With the 75th year of Indian independence serving as a broad inspiration, the various programmes will fall under these five categories — freedom struggle, ideas @75, achievements @75, actions @75, and resolves @75.

Through these categories, the festival will look at the role of the Indian scientific community in freedom movements, take stock of what Indian science has accomplished in various fields since independence, look at new ideas and action plans for the future of Indian science and technology, and view India’s scientific future from the prism of self-reliance. (IISF 2021 events at a glance)

The India International Science Festival has been six years in the running since its debut in 2015. It came about as an initiative of the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Earth Sciences in association with Vijnana Bharati, previously known as Swadeshi Science Movement.

The motivation was to put together a celebration of science for all, especially the promotion of public engagement with science and its benefits.

The inaugural event was held in Delhi (the second edition too), with Chennai, Lucknow and Kolkata following up as hosts in the years 2017, 2018 and 2019 respectively.

The year impacted by the pandemic, 2020, presented a difficulty for organising IISF, but it was eventually held in the virtual mode from 22-25 December. Forty-one events were conducted as part of IISF 2020, which saw more than one lakh participants in all.

This year, Panaji, Goa, is hosting the festival in a combined physical-virtual mode.

The IISF 2021 website was launched by Ministry of Earth Sciences Secretary Dr M Ravichandran on 11 November.

The curtain raiser event was held on Tuesday (16 November). The chief guest was Goa Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant. The other guests included Ministry of Earth Science Joint Secretary Indira Murthy, Vijnana Bharati organising secretary Jayant Sahasrabudhe, Goa University vice chancellor Dr H B Menon, Department of Science and Technology Secretary (Government of Goa) Dr Tariq Thomas, Department of Science Director (Government of Goa) Levinson Martins, and NCPOR's Mirza Javed Beg.

“This is one of the great events for the state of Goa,” Chief Minister Sawant said at the curtain raiser programme.

He added that it was a “delightful coincidence" that IISF 2021 was being held in Goa in the state's 60th year of liberation and also India's 75th year of independence.